Su7nmer Meeting, 31 



in the catalogue. Two years ago I asked the question : "If a bird 

 law is a good thing, why not a spray law that would compel every 

 raiser of fruit to spray his trees?" Mr. Maxwell said in answer 

 to a question I asked him one year ago last January, "I believe it 

 is possible, if you have held in subjection the fungus in your own 

 orchard, that it may be infested from spore life drifting from 

 orchards near by, that have not been sprayed. We can never at- 

 tain the success desired until our State enacts a rigid law, com- 

 pelling spraying in every orchard." If this is true of spore life, 

 why not more so of winged insects? 



Again, twice during the last year I have been called upon to 

 estimate the damage done to orchards by railroad fires. In trying 

 to reach a just conclusion, I find two phases of the subject that 

 need attention : First, no two of us are agreed upon what it costs 

 to bring a tree to a given age, or what it is worth when brought 

 to that age; and second, the State laws on this subject were evi- 

 dently made by railroad men and not by orchardists. 



The first phase is valuable only when a compromise can be 

 effected; for age of trees, cost of bringing to that age, variety, 

 care of orchard, condition at time of fire, shape, size, symmetry, 

 injuries from careless cultivation, borers or fungous infection, dis- 

 tance from market, facilities for handling and for cold storage, 

 per cent, of portion of orchard injured or destroyed to whole 

 orchard, are allowed the least possible weight in a case at law, 

 except in those points that may favor the defense. You are only 

 allowed to show the value of your orchard per acre, based upon 

 actual sales of such orchards recently made in your particular 

 neighborhood. The fact that no sales have been made, or that 

 nobody has an orchard for sale, has never offered one for sale at 

 any price, avails you nothing before the law ; and if you get any- 

 thing before the jury to your advantage, it must be done by shrewd- 

 ness and with difficulty. Next, the value of such land simply for 

 farming purposes, is determined by the same methods, and the 

 difference of these two values gives the value of your trees per 

 acre. It is not just — it is not fair. It allows you little or nothing 

 for the use of the land actually occupied by the trees, nothing for 

 the annoyance of farming around the trees, and worse than all 

 that, you get nothing for the years that are gone. Few men today 

 with an orchard ten years old can ever hope to raise another if 

 the present one should be destroyed by fire. But I do not blame 

 the courts. The law should be amended that we may be placed, 

 at least, on an equal footing with the railroads and with individuals 



